Indian Institute of Forest Management

Structure of Fellow Programme in Management (FPM)

The class-room course work is designed to provide an in-depth knowledge in management science, forestry, environment and development management in general, and the area of the specialisation of the student in particular.

The PGDFM first year courses provide grounding to the students in functional areas    of management with application bias in forestry, environment and development context. The PGDFM graduates of IIFM, get exemption from first year FPM courses.



          Term I                    Term I Courses        (7.0 CU)

          Term II                   Term II Courses       (7.0 CU)

                                   Fieldwork                    (0.5 CU)

          Term III                  Term III Courses      (6.0 CU)



Term Paper (Research oriented project of ten weeks duration immediately after Term-III)

The first Year FPM students are required to take up research oriented project work leading to a Term Paper, under the guidance of a faculty member from their area of specialization. The students are required to identify the faculty supervisor for this Term Paper. The same faculty may continue as the thesis guide depending upon the mutual interest. This project will carry 2.0 credit unit equivalence. The evaluation will be internal and criteria for same will be developed by the FPM Committee. The Term Paper should be publishable.

Second Year (Advance courses, Case preparation and finalization, Comprehensive Examination, Initiation and formulation of Thesis Proposal)

Additional advance courses could also be introduced - Seminar based courses/ Courses of Independent Studies. Electives during Term-IV to V have to be from the faculty area of specialisation. The Chairperson FPM will coordinate the floating of the advanced electives, including preparation of guidelines.

Term IV –              Three compulsory taught courses of 2.5 CU & one elective course of 1.0 CU.

n Philosophy of Management (0.5 credit unit)

n Advanced Research Methodology (1.0 credit unit)

n Sources of Data base (1.0 credit unit)

In addition students are expected to take minimum 3.0 credit unit courses as elective courses from the advance elective courses offered during the term.



                   Initiation of Case Preparation.

Term V -      One compulsory taught course of 0.5 CU & three elective courses of 1.0 CU each.

v Philosophy of Science (0.5 credit unit)

In addition students are expected to take minimum 3.0 credit unit         courses as elective courses from the advance elective courses offered during the term.

Comprehensive Examination

After completing the coursework, every student will be required to take the Comprehensive Examination (CE). Passing the comprehensive examination is compulsory for all the students. The main objective of this examination is to test the student’s understanding and grasp of the courses in an integral way. The comprehensive examination consists of a test covering the        student’s major area. It is expected to be conducted after the Term V.

Comprehensive Examination Committee (CEC)



The FPM Chairperson, in consultation with the area faculty will constitute a three        member Comprehensive Examination Committee (CEC) and nominate one of the members as the Chairperson. The Chairperson of the CEC takes the responsibility for administering the Comprehensive Examination for a student. To pass the CE, the majority of the committee members should declare the student’s performance as satisfactory. The component of the CE could be a combination of written and oral test.

Term VI -     Initiation and formulation of thesis proposal

                   Thesis Proposal Defense in seminar

If required, then revision of Thesis Proposal based on feedback

                   Start of Thesis Work

Minimum Academic requirement for taught subjects

It will be governed by FPM Academic Rules and Regulations.

Case Preparation

FPM student is expected to develop a case during the Second year based on the preliminary research. The case would be evaluated by the CEC and each student must obtain a satisfactory grade otherwise the case has to be revised till it reaches up to a stage of satisfaction.

However, it will not carry any credits. Such cases prepared during FPM programme can be used by IIFM faculty for IIFM academic programme, depending upon their suitability.

Cases can be published by the students

Third Year    Thesis Work, Research /Teaching Assignments

                               Participation in Research/Teaching work

Each of the doctoral students would be expected to provide assistance in research/teaching work of the Institute as a FPM scholar during the third and fourth years of study. This will provide them an opportunity to apply the research skills.

Fourth Year Thesis Work, Research/Teaching Assignments, Pre-thesis submission seminar, Publication of two research articles, Thesis submission and defense.

Residential requirements

Residential requirements for the first two years are compulsory. Remaining two years will be decided by the Institute on case to case basis.



The Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC) can allow the students to work outside the IIFM campus during third and fourth year, provided the student should not take up any part time or full time job/any other activity not related to thesis. The working executives also have to spend initial two years as fully residential scholar. However, the students are required to come to IIFM during 3rd and 4th year as and when required, if given permission to stay outside/going back to their parent organization for the deputed students.

Thesis

Thesis Should be a scholarly work related to contribution to the understanding and resolution of management problems. Thesis Should demonstrate professional competence in developing a model or a set of hypotheses, collecting and interpreting data, reaching conclusions, and drawing the implications for research and managerial practice.

Thesis Proposal

Student should start working on the thesis proposal soon after joining the Programme. However, every student would be expected to submit the thesis proposal at the earliest after passing the comprehensive examination. The thesis proposal has to be successfully defended by the student in a Seminar.

During the second year, the FPM student should identify, a thesis advisor who will guide him/her as Chairperson in his/her Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC). The FPM Chairperson appoints the TAC in consultation with the thesis advisor.

Change in the Topic of Thesis Proposal after approval.

If a student chooses to change the topic of the thesis proposed, on convincing reasons, Chairperson-FPM can allow the change only once but the student has to go through the whole process of thesis proposal approval again.

Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC)

The TAC consists of three members - Thesis advisor and two other members are from the related areas of specialization. The members are chosen to contribute to the thesis research in a complementary manner and to provide help in literature search, research design, model construction, fieldwork, and data analysis. An expert or an academician from outside of IIFM can also be member of the committee provided he/she has the requisite expertise and interest to advise the student.

If the circumstances demand, including those arising out of inability of any member of TAC to perform the assigned functions, the FPM Chairperson may, in consultation with the Chairperson of the TAC, can reconstitute the TAC.

In case TAC chairperson is likely to be unavailable for continuously long period of time, the TAC can be reconstituted at any point of time as per the need.

The role of TAC includes the following:

·                     To advise and give feedback to the student regarding thesis work on continuous basis.

·                     Judging the adequacy of research design for Thesis Proposal

·                     Attending thesis seminar to be presented by the student and to provide feedback

·                     Providing written feedback on the draft thesis submitted by the student

Thesis Proposal Seminar

When the TAC agrees on the adequacy of the research design, the student will formulate a preliminary thesis proposal and give a seminar on the proposal to the Institute’s academic community for getting further inputs to strengthen the thesis proposal.

The student should give at least two week’s notice to the FPM Office for arranging the seminar, in the interest of better participation from the institute’s academic community.

Approval and Submission of Thesis Proposal

A thesis proposal is approved only after the student has given the thesis proposal seminar and the TAC concludes that the subject appears researchable in the way it has been proposed. TAC will ascertain that the proposed field work is likely to produce the required data and the analytical methodology if adequately carried out will produce an acceptable thesis, and the student is ready for undertaking full scale research. The student will submit to the FPM Chairperson a copy of the thesis proposal approved by the TAC latest by the end of 2^nd Academic year (1^st academic year for the students who are exempted for the first year courses), failure to stick to the dates (30^th March) will be considered as “unsatisfactory performance” and the fellowship will be affected as per rules.

Publication of two research articles

Before submitting the doctoral draft thesis, students will be required to have at least two-research articles’ acceptance for publication in a Journal/ Conference proceedings based on their research work. This is a Pre-requisite for thesis defense.

Students will get credit for presenting and publishing research articles in the national /international seminars/ conferences.

The joint authorship with the Thesis Advisor is also acceptable, provided the student should be the first Author.

Draft Thesis

The student should submit one copy of the approved draft thesis duly signed by the TAC members to the FPM office.

Draft Seminar

After completing all the requirements and before submitting the final thesis for defense, the student will present a seminar on the research to disseminate the findings to stimulate research work in the area. The seminar also provides an opportunity to obtain feedback from the institute’s academic community including the TAC towards better presentation and findings. The student should give at least two weeks notice to the FPM office for arranging the seminar in the interest of better participation from the institute’s academic community.

Final thesis submission

After incorporating all the suggestions provided in the Thesis Seminar, the student is required to submit the final thesis along with signed approval forms by all the TAC members to the FPM Office.

Thesis Examination Committee

When a student is ready to submit his/her 6 copies of thesis work, requests the         FPM Chairperson to appoint the Thesis Examination Committee (TEC). The FPM        committee appoints the TEC, consisting of one member of the TAC (in        consultation    with the Chairperson TAC) and two eminent external experts,     to be taken from          experts’ list submitted by the TAC Chairperson.

TAC Chairperson will submit a panel of five external experts with complete contact details.

The role of TEC includes:

v    Examining the thesis work

v    Conducting an oral thesis defense examination (any one of the external expert can be invited to conduct the oral examination).

Award of Title

The student shall complete the following requirements before qualifying for the award of the title:

v    Submission of required number of copies of the thesis and abstracts as per guidelines.

v    Obtain clearance form from various functionaries of the institute as per guidelines.

For getting the award, at least two members of TEC should declare the student’s thesis work as satisfactory and recommend for the award of fellowship of IIFM.   If two TEC members reject the thesis, then the case will be referred to FPM Committee to take further decision, including re-submission of thesis, after incorporating modifications/improvement.

On qualifying for the award of the title, students become eligible to receive the title of “Fellow of the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal”.

A provisional certificate can be given on the student’s request to this effect, prior to convocation.